Avatar is a movie everyone should see and no one should think about ever again. By “see”, I mean “watch in 3D on the biggest movie screen you can find.” (Avatar is the anti-Godfather, which demands to be viewed whenever you stumble upon it flipping channels no matter how many times you’ve seen it or how crappy your TV is.) And by “think about”, I mean “do not consider any non-visual aspect of the film.” Just remember there were blue things, they were cool, and that is all.

Avatar has received heavy flack for its reputed political motives, primarily from the right but with some fire coming from the left as well. And it goes without saying it’s been taking heat for dialogue that makes George Lucas seem like Oscar Wilde on a good day. All this misses the point, however.  James Cameron spent hundreds of millions of dollars and incalculable man hours assembling a film that very often doesn’t even make any damn sense. And I don’t mean details like Cameron’s admission that the Na’Vi shouldn’t have breasts because they “aren’t placental mammals” (incidentally, did at some point Zoe Saldana comment to Sam Worthington, “By the way, if you’re thinking I’m a placental mammal, think again”, because otherwise I don’t recall this being an issue). I refer to BIG plot points, the kind of things the Oscar-winning Canadian should have really addressed at some point in the years he spent prepping this thing. For example:

-When the military first bombs the hell out of the Na’Vi, we observe spears harmlessly plunking off their windows as they massacre the super-sized Smurfs, at which point Michelle Rodriguez becomes so indignant she takes her helicopter and just flies away.

-Upon returning to the base, the Colonel apparently gives the order, “I want one guard to monitor the prisoners, I want that pilot chick who went AWOL in the middle of the battle to wander around with unsupervised access to the prisoners, and everybody else just sort of hang out with me in the control room. And make sure no one looks at the security cameras under any circumstances, but that goes without saying.”

-In the rematch, suddenly Na’Vi are breaking windshields left and right, leading us to conclude either the natives made a huge breakthrough in spear technology in the interim or the Colonel decided his forces should switch to EZ-Shatter glass to keep things interesting.

I’m sorry, James Cameron, but if you can’t even figure out a plausible escape sequence, I don’t care what you have to say about imperialism. Avatar is one of those movies that come along every few generations that set a new standard for spectacle. These films can be racist (Birth of a Nation), subtly racist (Gone with the Wind), ludicrously racist (Triumph of the Will), really frickin’ confusing (2001), or feature Mark Hamill (Star Wars).

These films are essential.

They aren’t necessarily good.

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